Erin O'Connor says that university English departments have chosen to move away from literature and writing so much that it is questionable why they continue to exist:
I do think that the academic English department is committing slow, unwitting suicide. I do think that it is only a matter of time before budget-conscious administrators realize that at many schools, particularly at elite ones, there is very little, if any, actual "English" being done in English departments, and that there is thus no clear rationale for preserving English departments as such. If the people who work in them can't agree that literature is their purview, and continue to craft themselves as incoherent mishmashes of off-topic hyperspecializations (sexuality studies, postcolonial studies, material culture studies, and so on), then they are asking to be merged and consolidated with other disciplines. Under the guise of a largely irresponsible and anti-intellectual "interdisciplinarity," a great many English departments are making forceful arguments for their own dissolution.
One response a university might make is to set up a Writing department, or a Literature department in competition with the rotten old English Department. But this would take a brave President. [more, permalink,
http://php.indiana.edu/~erasmuse/w/03.10.14a.htm ]
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